diggerfoot
Humanity Hiker
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I brought up the point in another thread that the amount of threes taken, rather than the percentage of threes made, is a better indication of three point FG defense. Ideally a team wants to make the highest percentage shot that they can, though you get an extra point for making a three. A team "settles" for threes at a greater rate if they are relatively good at making them or they have no better option given the defense they faced. SJU likes the three and our defense led to a shooting percentage under 30% overall. Unless the game was being slowed down, that means SJU should have been seeking to maximize the # of three point shots they were taking.
With a shout out to the stats kept by JRRRJ. UConn averages 10 threes taken during a half over 31.5 attempts. Opponents have taken 8 threes with the same amount of attempts. SJU took 9 threes in the first half, one more than the average for opponents, yet this was out of 34 attempts. As a percentage this was one point greater than the average (26% v. 25%) for this year, but much less than what our own balanced offense takes for threes (32%), and less than the average for opponents in previous years. Our defense on average makes taking the three difficult and our performance against SJU in the first half was close to that average.
However, I understand how the "eye test" suggests otherwise. SJU made 4 out of 9, a high percentage, though only a little over 1 extra three per half than average. Also consider SJU's sterling 2.0 A/T ratio for the game. SJU ran their offense patiently and well, let's give them a little credit here. They couldn't shoot nearly as many threes as a team like them should strive for in the first half, but they converted well. In reality, it was a good job on both sides.
With a shout out to the stats kept by JRRRJ. UConn averages 10 threes taken during a half over 31.5 attempts. Opponents have taken 8 threes with the same amount of attempts. SJU took 9 threes in the first half, one more than the average for opponents, yet this was out of 34 attempts. As a percentage this was one point greater than the average (26% v. 25%) for this year, but much less than what our own balanced offense takes for threes (32%), and less than the average for opponents in previous years. Our defense on average makes taking the three difficult and our performance against SJU in the first half was close to that average.
However, I understand how the "eye test" suggests otherwise. SJU made 4 out of 9, a high percentage, though only a little over 1 extra three per half than average. Also consider SJU's sterling 2.0 A/T ratio for the game. SJU ran their offense patiently and well, let's give them a little credit here. They couldn't shoot nearly as many threes as a team like them should strive for in the first half, but they converted well. In reality, it was a good job on both sides.
